A shot of the 2012 Oxford & Cambridge boat race, with precedes the prestigious dinner. Facebook

Lord Chris Patten, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, will be the key speaker at the 81st Annual Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race Dinner at New York’s University Club on April 10.

Lord Patten is the last British governor of Hong Kong and current chairman of the BBC.

Also at the oldest continual Oxford and Cambridge alumni event, which has been held since 1829, Dame Barbara Stocking, president of Cambridge’s Murray Edwards College, will deliver what’s known as the traditional “Toast to the Universities.”